Month: December 2023

Oppenheimer

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Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s epic ode to Robert J Oppenheimer, the “father of the bomb” who masterminded the development of the first atomic bomb in the 1940s and later went sour on the US government’s use of nuclear power just before the US government went sour on him. Oppenheimer’s is a fascinating story to tell. Emblematic of the change in the perception of nuclear power from scientific miracle to bringer of armageddon, he fell foul of the McCarthyite anti-Communist atmosphere after the Second World War. The film delivers the proof that Nolan is now as at home making movies about historical events (alongside Dunkirk) as he is in the realm of the high … Read more

Foto Háber aka Haber’s Photo Shop

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Gábor and Anna in the darkroom

There’s a lot that’s good about Foto Háber (aka Haber’s Photo Shop), a pithy Hungarian spy thriller from 1963, but it does have one obstacle to surmount. Of which more later. One of the best things is Zoltán Latinovits as the cool, calm spy infiltrating an espionage ring that steals state secrets. Or secrets, let’s just say secrets, of which more, also, later. We meet Gábor Csiky (Latinovits) in a prison where he’s introduced as an ex-priest and theologian – the other inmates refer to him as “Reverend”. When they ask him what he’s in there for, Gábor replies “political stuff”, modestly. One inmate points out that, rationally, all crime, no matter how … Read more

Rotting in the Sun

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Jordan and Sebastián meet on a nudist beach

Sebastián Silva’s films are never boring and Rotting in the Sun is no exception. Alienating, sometimes. In this case it’s the male genitalia on display – big and small, in various hues and states of turgidity – that’s going to put off a lot of people. Difficult to swallow, handle, choose your own innuendo. Cheap shots to one side, the first thing to say about this film is that the weird thing about the cock is that it’s absolutely not necessary. No one needs to see men getting it on together for the film to work. There is a wilful perversity to it. Silva is daring his audience not to be alienated. Because … Read more

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

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Delphine and Solange

As is often the case with sequels, “the same but different” is the big idea in the musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort), the 1967 follow-up to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg). Largely it’s the same production team as on the 1964 movie – writer/director Jacques Demy, composer Michel Legrand, producer Mag Bodard, costume designer Jacqueline Moreau and production designer Bernard Evein. They gussie up this film in much the same way as they did the previous one. Bright lights, bold colours, big sets, grand camera movements, and locations tweaked till they squeak with pastel excess. Catherine Deneuve is the only key cast member to survive … Read more

The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra

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A victim of the fungus

The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is about mould, not backbones. So why the weird title? Because, I’m guessing, debut writer/director Park Sye-young thought it had the right effect. This is a film that’s all about effect, mood, and Park conjures like a master right from the opening seconds, where a removal guy is talking on the phone to the woman whose stuff he’s meant to be moving. The woman isn’t there and he’s haranguing her. Meanwhile the guy next to him is talking right over the top of him in a separate conversation. It doesn’t overlap, as traditionally “realistic” dialogue in movies does (see Robert Altman), it attempts to overwhelm. After the removal guy’s … Read more

Ride the Pink Horse

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Gagin and Pila

Ride the Pink Horse? Strange title. A gay slur, perhaps? Like “playing the pink oboe”, maybe? But as the title music comes up, all clippity cloppity, this unusual movie from 1947 sends us off in yet another direction. Because this isn’t a cowboy movie either, or even something more esoteric, it’s an unusual slice of dark noir set, atypically, on the Mexican border, where an ex-soldier recently back from the Second World War arrives in town to exact revenge on the guy who caused the death of his old comrade-in-arms. Robert Montgomery plays the ex-soldier, Gagin, and Fred Clark plays the slippery Mr Hugo, from whom revenge will be extracted, that’s if Gagin … Read more

Anatomy of a Fall

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Sandra and her lawyer

Following on from the brilliant Sybil, Justine Triet double-taps it with Anatomy of a Fall, another rangy drama with rare psychological depth. Written expressly for Sandra Hüller by Triet and her partner Arthur Harari – and you only hope that it doesn’t reflect their own relationship – it’s the old “did he fall or was he pushed story” spun out at tantalising length. Did Sandra (Hüller’s character’s name too) push her husband to his death off the balcony of their swish chalet in the French Alps or was she asleep at the time, oblivious to everything with ear plugs in, as she claims? We follow Sandra from the film’s opening moments to the … Read more

The Set-Up

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Robert Ryan's Stoker on the canvas

Here’s the set-up to 1949’s The Set-Up. On one side Stoker, an ageing boxer convinced he has one more shot at glory. On the other Tiger, an upcoming young fighter in the pocket of a local gang boss. The boss, via an intermediary, asks/commands Tiny, Stoker’s manager/trainer, to get Stoker to throw the fight. Tiny is convinced Stoker will go down anyway so he doesn’t bother to pass on the message that Stoker is to take a dive in the third. Tiny is not just a coward – he avoids an awkward confrontation with Stoker – this way he also doesn’t have to share any of the sweetener with his boy. The Set-Up is … Read more

A Haunting in Venice

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Poirot in the dark with a crucifix in the background

A change of gear for Kenneth Branagh’s third Agatha Christie adaptation. A Haunting in Venice isn’t as starry as Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile, doesn’t start out with a captive roster of possible murderers and murderees and, to an extent, abandons the strict rationality of previous Hercule Poirot adventures for something a bit more supernatural. All three turn out to be changes for the better. This is probably the best of the bunch so far, though, full disclosure, I’m not really a fan of these things. Whether it’s Peter Ustinov, John Malkovich, Albert Finney, Ian Holm, David Suchet, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina or even Austin Trevor (first of … Read more

The Street with No Name

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Mark Stevens, Barbara Lawrence and Richard Widmark pose for a publicity shot

Full of guys with nicknames like Mutt, Shivvy and Whitey, 1948’s The Street with No Name is your tough, streetwise crime drama making many claims to authentiticity. It was one of a run of “semi-documentary” movies made around this time, often by Twentieth Century-Fox, and shot out on the streets, in the bars and at the racetracks where ordinary Americans lived their lives in the boom that followed the Second World War. Don’t get too cosy is the message, delivered via stern voiceover and onscreen teleprinter in the film’s opening moments – gang activity is starting to re-assert itself now the peace has been won, it declares in so many words. If the … Read more